security asset that israel has, which is its close relationship with the united states regardless of who's in power. he did seem to many israelis to lean toward mitt romney, to lean toward adelson, mitt romney's biggest financial backer. you hear even on the center-right criticism of netanyahu for having done that. we'll see. is that criticism significant enough that netanyahu has real trouble and that he either isn't re-elected or is re-elected in a way that limits his ability to be very aggressive on foreign policy. >> richard. >> i think that's true. the last israeli prime minister to take on an american president and have the relationship pay a real price was shamir. and 20 years ago, he lost re-election. the problem right now -- the reality in israel is there's no rabin in the wings. so bibi netanyahu enjoys a first among unequals, if you will, standing in israeli politics. a broader point, we won't have the luxury and barack obama's not going to have the luxury of seeing this in isolation. he's got a raft of other issues in the middle east. he's also got the domestic thing we w